Ukraine war: Putin’s annexation will fail, say Ukrainians at eastern front

BBC News:

As Russia’s Vladimir Putin announces the annexation of swathes of sovereign Ukrainian territory, issues nuclear threats and mobilises hundreds of thousands of reservists, the response from Ukrainian forces on the eastern front is unchanged – they will fight for every last inch of soil.

We travel to front-line positions in the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk – one of the four regions which President Putin is now illegally claiming as his own. Our journey is made in stages.

We slow down to cross the Bakhmutovka river, speed up to cover exposed ground, then weave through a dangerous curtain of downed power lines. For the last few metres, we run. All the while, the shelling is constant – part of war’s familiar soundscape.

But when we reach the front-line troops, inside a battle-scarred building, we hear something else – the crackle of small arms fire. The two sides are so close they can target each other with riffles.

The Russians are around 400 metres (437 yards) in front of us, and trying hard to close in. We are warned there is a Russian sniper to the rear.

At his post below ground, where a ginger cat keeps him company, the unit commander is sombre and blunt.

“It’s pretty hard here now,” says Oleksandr, a 31-year-old. “It’s stressful. Everyone is under pressure. The enemy is very near, but we are standing and fighting back.”

He dismisses President Putin’s recent referendums as “delusional” and says Ukrainians will not be dictated to at the barrel of a Russian gun.

“In my view, those referendums will change nothing. We will fight Putin’s army and make them withdraw from our land,” he says.

Oleksandr knows the cost of war – and not only from fighting his own battles.

“My brother died,” he tells me, adding: “But I don’t know where and when that happened, because he was drafted by a different drafting office from a different region. He died as well as a few of my comrades, officers who trained with me. I found out they were dead, too. So, I have lost family and friends.”

He has not lost his will to fight. Neither has 25-year-old Roman, who is operating a key weapon in this war – a drone.